Personal Narrative

By Jamie Quinn

I lay awake in my bed. I turn to the clock, reading 12:00 am. I was eight years old, and I couldn’t sleep for the life of me. My dad’s music was blasting in the basement. Our house is three stories tall, and I could still feel the slight rumbling of his music in the walls. I knew I had school the next day, but the urge to go listen with him overpowered my anxiety about not getting enough sleep. I quietly slid out of bed, careful not to wake up my sister and mom sleeping at the other end of the hallway. By the time I had crept my way to the basement door, the song was clear: “Another One Bites the Dust” by Queen. This was my favorite song. I creaked open the door and my dad ran to greet me, not questioning why his eight-year-old daughter is awake at this hour. He smelled strongly of sweat and Chinese food. Suddenly I was being picked up and he brought me over to the small red couch with the pink blanket on it, my official spot. We both laughed and he ran to the computer to pick the next song. These nights with my dad are some of my most important memories, even if they created a zombie out of me the next morning.

My dad loved the band Queen throughout his life, and he wanted to pass on that love to me. Our almost nightly dance parties proved he was successful. He taught me all about the members of Queen, how they paved the way for future artists, how they could never be replicated. He taught me about his other favorite bands as well, King’s X and CAKE being the most memorable. I grew away from the pop music most girls my age loved, and that I had loved previously. Taylor Swift turned into blink-182, Katy Perry into My Chemical Romance. I spent almost every night in the basement with him and started to enjoy rock music more and more. As my music taste evolved; I started to share my own songs with him. He encouraged me to find my own music taste, while also guiding me in the direction of rock. Maybe my songs weren’t good, but he never told me this. I was a kid learning that I could have my own taste in music, not just what was played on the radio. I presented bands to my dad that he had never even heard of. He told me this is why listening to music with me is so special to him.

Once I turned 15, I got a job as a hostess at my local Chinese food restaurant. I was working on the weekends, and between that and schoolwork, I found it hard to continue listening to music with my dad. So, we made a plan to listen to music together every Friday after work. Coming home at ten, I honestly didn’t want to do anything but sleep. Despite that, I went down every Friday and always had a good time. Some nights I didn’t get off the couch I was so exhausted, while others I initiated a dance party between the two of us. No matter how we both felt, Friday nights were our time to unwind and talk to each other. We would talk about school, politics, his past, our problems, how hungry we were - nothing was off the table. I knew no matter how hard my week was, there would always be a place to talk about my life without shame.

After countless nights sharing songs and talking with each other, my dad had an idea to start voting on the songs we played. We would have elimination rounds, top 3 songs, and our own point system we used to vote. As a competitive person, I thought this sounded amazing. We had some kinks to work out at first. We landed on the simple name “Music Share” for what we were doing. After a few practice rounds, we eventually started to post the results on Facebook. I don’t really know why we posted them; I think we just hoped it would get someone interested in what we were doing. After his first few posts, multiple people reached out to him asking what we were doing and how it worked. People actually listened to the songs we shared and gave their own input, mostly telling us that we voted completely wrong. They started to do the same thing with their own kids, posting it for us to see and respond to. My mom even made us t-shirts that we wore on Music Share nights. My dad wore it more than I did, but the thought was still there. Music Share became our weekly tradition, people begging us to upload if we missed a week.

Living an hour away from home now, my dad and I plan to never stop Music Share. At the beginning of each week, we text each other our three songs. We have the whole week to listen to and analyze each song. On Sunday night, I send him my votes and he counts them up in the basement. He still listens to “I Don’t Feel No Ways Tired” by James Cleveland while he does the official voting, just like we used to when I was home. I love that we continue our traditions, but it doesn’t feel the same as before. I miss the talks we would have before I came to college and the comfort, he gave me by just being there to listen to me. Hearing “Another One Bites the Dust” will always trigger positive memories with my dad. It makes me feel like that 8-year-old girl again, sitting in the basement learning about myself and my dad through music.

Jamie Quinn is a Graphic Design major from Rutland, MA. She made it to the district level for the Lions Club International Speech Contest in 2019